This invention relates to pants, particularly to pants for recreational use and for physically infirm or handicapped persons that are easy to don and remove.
In outdoor sporting events, such as soccer, the players ordinarily wear warm up pants when they are not actually in the game, or are travelling to and from the site of the game, in order to keep warm. This presents several problems. One problem is that when a player is called to enter the game the warm ups need to be removed rapidly so as not to hold up play. Another problem is that in outdoor sports the players shoes typically become covered with grass, dirt and even mud, which makes putting pants on after play without soiling the inside of the pants difficult, if not impossible.
Similarly, cross country skiers seek warmth until they have been active for a certain period. Then, they would like to reduce the layers of clothing and don them again when the skier slows down and cools off. However, this is difficult for a cross country skier to do with conventional ski pants because of the ski boots worn by the skier and the skis to which the boots are attached. Even pants with a full side zipper would be difficult to use because ski gloves must be removed and a small zipper manipulated.
One type of warm up pant which is often used by basketball players addresses the first problem by providing a releasable seam down the legs on the outside thereof, the seam being closed by a plurality of snap-type fasteners. However, this type of pant is not entirely satisfactory as a quick removal pant because the snaps do not release easily unless the pant is grasped near the snaps, which requires several unsnapping tugs, and each of typically about twenty snaps must be individually put together again to wear the pants. More importantly, these types of pants do not provide much relief from the problems of keeping the interior of the pants clean or preventing catching of the pants with cleats. This is because, as a practical matter, it is difficult to close the snaps after donning the pants. It is far easier to snap the pants together before donning them again, but that leads to soiling the inside of the pants with grass, dirt or mud from a player's shoes when the pants are donned or having the player's shoes catch on the inside of the pant leg.
Other types of pants which have releasable seams at least partly along the outside of the legs for convenience have been disclosed. For example, Purdon U.S. Pat. No. 3,801,986 discloses ski warm up pants that have a zipper along the outside seam of the legs for ease of removal. Similarly, Schifman U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,865 discloses an outer garment for cold weather which also has a zipper along the outside seam for ease of removal; however, this usually requires the removal of gloves to manipulate the zipper. Grilliot et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,760 discloses fire fighter's trousers which have a seam with a zipper part of the way up each leg for permitting the trousers to be expanded at the bottom for donning the trousers with fireboots on. However, zippers running the length of a person's leg are awkward to manipulate, typically take several seconds to unzip, can be difficult to align for closing the pant, can jam by catching on adjacent material, may pinch the wearer's skin, often become untracked or otherwise fail. Moreover, while a seam part of the way up a pant helps to fit a boot through the pant, it does not prevent the inside of the pant from being snagged or soiled by dirty footwear when the pants are donned.
Pants have also been disclosed which have releasable seams along the legs thereof that include a continuous strip of hook and loop fastener material, such as that marketed under the trademark VELCRO.RTM. by Velcro USA. Some such pants have been designed for the convenience of persons having a physical infirmity or handicap. For example, Smith et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,008,962 discloses pants with inseams closed by hook and loop material, and Grassick U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,756 discloses pants which have hook and loop material at the inseam and along the outer seam of only one leg. Neither of these arrangements places the seam in a convenient position for quick removal of the pants and, in any case, it is almost as difficult to unfasten and fasten a continuous strip of hook and loop material as a plurality of snaps. In addition, a continuous strip of hook loop material is relatively rigid, which limits the flexibility of the pant and makes the use of lightweight pant material impractical because it does not allow the fabric to assume its own shape.
Therefore, there is a need for improved pants suitable for recreational use, use as sports warm ups and for physically infirm or handicapped persons which decreases the time and inconvenience in removing and donning the pants.